061. stumble.
Nam Mellitus Erat, 061. stumble.
Late September.
048. diamond.
Iker opens the door and drops his bookbag, then looks up and puts everything else down quieter. He holds the keys together when he sets them on the desk, so they set down with a gentle clink instead of a jangle.
Cesc is napping. He likes to nap. Iker thinks, if he could, he'd nap all the time. He can come back at any time of day, from a morning lecture or with a box of leftover pasta from dinner at Zarella's, and he'll find Cesc under the covers or on top of them, with clothes or without, tucked up in a ball.
Today he's wearing jeans and socks and one of Iker's shirts, because all of his are dirty. Iker lies down very carefully in the open space behind him, flat on his back, shoes off the bed. They aren't touching.
At first he ignored it. It wasn't a big deal. It's just something he realized, in a conscious way, and he freaked out a bit and now he's done with it. But the thought's like an earworm, like hearing a song and getting it stuck in your head a week later, going crazy trying not to hum it.
He'll look at Cesc waiting for him outside the English building and notice how narrow his shoulders slope. How big and boyish his eyes are. He'll watch Cesc dart around guys twice his size on the pitch and there's another boy, an even smaller one, but it seems like it's always Cesc who gets tackled, Cesc who comes home limping with bruises the size of plums. He isn't fragile, but he's breakable. His hair is messy. His wrists are thin. Some of them aren't even things about Cesc that turn him on. But some are.
He likes that Cesc is smaller then him. He likes how easy it is to turn him on, how an open kiss behind his ear or a thumb on his nipple can push him over the edge, shuddering and slack-jawed. He likes when Cesc snuffles in his hair. He likes that Cesc's hips slot perfectly in his hands. He likes when Cesc sleeps between the wall and Iker's body-likes knowing, vaguely, that if something came after Cesc, it would have to get through him first. He knows he's not supposed to like something because he can protect it. He's not supposed to like something when the power balance is so incredibly skewed.
Cesc shifts, turning his face into the sheets. It's cold in the room. Iker fixes his shirt where it's riding up, pulling it down to meet his pants. Cesc reaches back and keeps Iker's hand there, covering the clothed ridge of his hip.
The flu is going around campus. Dr. Beckham gets it bad, and Iker gets a few days off of class. He spends the time working on his thesis, writes the email he's supposed to write to his residents: the flu's going around campus, if you have flu-like symptoms, please refrain from going to class, this is the number of the Health Office. But he's fine and Cesc is fine, all late summer tan and grass stains on his knees, and Iker thinks maybe it passed over their room, like the RA sign is lamb's blood on their door.
Then he wakes up at 4 in the morning on a Tuesday and isn't sure why. His stomach flips and he realizes he's going to throw up.
Iker hasn't been sick since he was a teenager-really, really sick, anyways-and he forgot the panic of it, the realization that you're going to throw up and there's nothing you can do about it. It's humiliating too, being sick, being out of control of your body. Throwing up hurts more than he remembers. His eyes are a little wet, on reflex.
He sits back, panting, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He flushes the toilet, then peeks out the bathroom door from the floor. The sliver of light shows that Cesc is still sleeping, which makes things better. He scoots back to lean against the wall, fighting down vertigo, and closes his eyes.
Iker blinks. It's morning and Cesc's in the bathroom. The light's on and it feels like knives to the back of his head. He doesn't make a sound but he opens his mouth and just like that, Cesc covers his eyes with his hand. Darkness closes in around him. He relaxes a bit.
"Are you okay?" Cesc asks.
Iker hurts all over. He's stoved up from hours on the tile and there's a deeper ache now, in his head and his muscles. "I'm fine." He shifts to sit up straighter. "I'm sick."
"Sick how?"
He feels Cesc hunch down at his side. His other hand cups Iker's forehead, then pushes his bangs back. Iker can feel it in every hair on his head, the weird hypersensitivity that comes with illness.
"Just throwing up."
"Oh, 'just throwing up'. Okay, no big," Cesc says. "Your head's really hot. Keep your eyes closed."
He stands and flips off the light, then opens the bathroom door more, letting sun in from the window that isn't too harsh, but bright enough so they won't trip on anything. Iker can't see any of this, but he hears it. He still squints his eyes when he opens them, just to make sure.
Cesc is nowhere to be seen. The stale smell of vomit still hangs in the air. His skin feels tacky and cold and he smells weird. He looks longingly at the shower and realizes, with some horror, that he doesn't know if he could stay on his feet long enough.
Cesc comes back and sits on the floor next to him, cross-legged. His hair is all sticking up on one side, but not the other. Their knees are bumping. He looks particularly young or maybe vulnerable and Iker doesn't want-but he gravitates. He feels nauseous again.
"You're going to get sick," he tells Cesc.
"No, my immune system's, like, evolved," Cesc says simply, morning hoarse. (He sounds like he might if Iker fucked his mouth, and Iker can't-) Cesc hands him a glass of water, and Tylenol. The capsules stick to his palm. "They could make a sci-fi movie about my immune system."
No stubble on his chin.
"You're not staying."
"Right," Cesc says. Yeah right, he means.
"You're not staying," Iker repeats, his voice firm. "You need to go to class."
Cesc waits for a punchline that doesn't come. His face goes blank. Then he frowns. He seems to be considering saying something, but he doesn't. In the end, he gets up and leaves. Iker hears drawers opening and shutting, and then the click of the front door.
Iker thumps his head lightly on the wall.
He drags himself out of the bathroom around ten, manages to find the plastic trash can (stored in the closet) and lines it with a bag before he feels too tired to walk around anymore. He flips open his laptop, and it takes him two tries to enter his password correctly. He's just started an email to Dr. Del Bosque about missing class today (that should go over well) when an AIM box pops up. Iker always forgets that it signs him in as soon as he boots up. He needs to figure out how to turn that off.
belmonte4: dude i heard ur on ur deathbed
Iker types for a few seconds, then stops. It's hard to be funny.
belmonte4: do u need anything. bc ill buy it and leave it outside the door but no way im comign in there
icasillas: I'm good.
belmonte4: wheres cesc
icasillas: Class.
belmonte4: u sent him to class?
Iker doesn't know how Sergio knows these things. He doesn't respond, and after a minute, the little pencil blinks. Sergio is typing.
belmonte4: ur loss
Iker wakes up and feels a million times worse. He doesn't know if it's sunrise or sunset. He isn't even sure what day it is.
Cesc's playing his Gameboy at the table. So, sunset. Iker doesn't know how long he's been home, tiptoeing around, forced to be quiet in a way he isn't natural for him.
Iker watches him play for a while, half-asleep, until Cesc looks up and notices he's awake, like he's been periodically checking all along. He pauses his game (no familiar ding, the sound is off) and goes into the kitchen. Iker hears the microwave beeping, and smells something that makes his stomach hurt with hunger and rebellion.
"I know you don't want to," Cesc says, "But you should eat this." He sets a bowl down next to him. It's broth and rice, and it doesn't look or smell pre-packaged. "My sister gets sick a lot. It helps."
Cesc's hair is wet from a shower after practice. He has a cut on his lip where he chewed on it too hard. It's a bad habit. Iker's still looking up at him because he can't stop, he hasn't touched him since the lecture about diamonds and he feels crazy, and Cesc's looking down, thoughtful, then he bends down and Iker thinks he might kiss him, or kiss his cheek, but Cesc just gently bumps their foreheads and it's so-Iker's overcome with this cutting need to crush Cesc in his arms. To pin him down and hold him and keep him there, even when he's sick, when he couldn't get it up for shit and doesn't really want to touch anybody anyways.
Cesc smells like the Nerds he buys from the corner store with spare change.
Iker pushes him away.
"What's your problem?" Cesc should be mad, but he seems more confused than anything else. He's so small in his shirt.
"Don't you have somewhere to go?" It's maybe the harshest thing Iker's ever said to him, and it comes out sounding even harsher than he meant it to. Sickness and discomfort and fever are escalating the situation, like kindling in a firepit.
There's a long silence. Cesc is looking to the side, his mouth a thin line. Iker can't tell what he's thinking. Then when he meets Iker's eyes, he's impossibly angry.
"Why won't you let me help you?" Because Cesc always says what most people think but never say. Iker doesn't know what to respond, so he doesn't respond at all.
Iker also doesn't know what kind of person sticks around after a fight, when the air is heavy and they're mad and everyone's mad, to wet washcloths. But after ten minutes in the hallway, when Iker thought he was halfway to a friend's to crash and maybe stay, Cesc is back, wetting a washcloth in the sink. He's wringing it out and folding it in half on the way out of the kitchen, and he lays it out on Iker's forehead. Then he sits at the desk and starts his homework.
Iker eats the soup and watches carlights on the wall, drifting in and out of consciousness. After twenty minutes or so, Cesc gets up and comes back to take the bowl and turn the washcloth over, like he knew it was getting hot. It's cold again. It feels good. Iker falls asleep listening to Cesc's pencil scratch the paper, the occasional rubbery sound of his eraser rubbing graphite.
He has weird dreams. They're more vivid than usual, and they move faster. It reminds him of being high and getting overwhelmed when someone near you moves too fast. Everything is stutter motion.
The one he remembers, he had early on. Unai's in it for a while, they're at the art museum they took their mom to for her birthday. They're eating macaroni and cheese all alone in the restaurant when Iker thinks he might see Cesc outside, moving around in the courtyard full of statues. Iker tries to find him, but every time he thinks he does, it's another statue instead. He thinks, even in the dream, this isn't symbolic of anything, really. Only how much I want him.
He wakes up sweating all over and his mouth is dry and the clock says 11:35AM. Cesc is leaning against the counter, eating a bowl of Fruit Loops. He's skimming a magazine he lifted from the mailroom.
Iker knows he had an 11'o'clock class. "Cesc," he starts, then he throws up. He clutches the side of the bed a bit, because it hurts.
Cesc watches, and waits for him to finish. "Shut up, Iker."
He stands there and stares at him until he's sure that Iker isn't going to say anything else, then he goes in the kitchen. Iker hears the faucet running, the bowl being rinsed out in the sink. He rolls over.
Cesc comes back with orange juice and pills. They might be vitamin C, or they might be Tylenol, or both. Iker swallows them either way.
Cesc lies down, facing him. He settles in with the mandated distance between them, because they're fighting. Iker feels a little better now, for having thrown up.
"Am I too hot?" Cesc murmurs, watching him.
"No," Iker replies.
Cesc reaches up, brushing Iker's damp hair back off his forehead.
It's been two days since he got better, three since he started going back to classes. Cesc and him aren't talking much beyond the niceties. It isn't awkward, but it's strained. One morning Cesc looks gray around the edges, but he's an adult or close enough and if Cesc thinks he's fine to go to class, then he's fine to go to class.
But when Iker opens the door halfway through Cesc's practice time and there are two boys there, one of them holding Cesc up with an arm around his waist, all those thoughts are gone. The alternating "He's fine" and "I need to end it" and "It's not that big of a deal" and "You're a pervert" and "This can be just like my other relationships." All Iker can think about is not reaching out for him and taking him.
Something must show in Iker's face, the way his hands move, because the taller boy says, "He's okay."
"He puked in practice today," the smaller one explains.
"He always pukes in practice," the taller one points out, adjusting Cesc on his side.
"Shut up," Cesc mumbles.
"I'm Pique," the taller one responds, ignoring him. "This is Leo."
"Nice to meet you," Leo says. Leo is the other small boy on the team. Iker wonders if he got the side-looking from Cesc or vice-versa. His couldn't be interpreted as anything close to sullen, though. Just shy. Iker probably likes Leo.
"Nice to meet you," Iker says.
"Anyways." Pique's hand is steady on Cesc's hip, holding him up. Iker recognizes that he's sizing him up, and that he doesn't trust him. "If you need anything, you'll call us," he says to Cesc, more statement than question.
"Yeah," Cesc says.
Pique gives him a slight hug and hands him over to Iker. Cesc's ribs are hot under his hands, thin and birdlike.
"We're coming over tomorrow, to see how he is," Pique says, like he's daring Iker to say otherwise.
"Sure," Iker replies. If Iker were thinking straight, he'd decide he likes Pique too.
They leave and Iker closes the door. Cesc is avoiding eye contact, slumped in Iker's grip. It reminds Iker of the beginning of the semester. He knows it's his fault. He hates it.
"It's something else. It's not even the same thing," Cesc says, defiant. He's all tight lines and stiff shoulders, bracing for Iker's I-told-you-so. But after a moment, it's like something in him gives. He goes loose all over. He presses his face in Iker's chest, near his arm, like just smelling Iker makes him feel a little better.
Iker puts his hand in the back of Cesc's hair. They stand there by the door.
Cesc came to him. Iker needs to think about it. Cesc came to him, and Iker let him, and then he cut him off without any explanation at all. And Cesc didn't understand why, but he made it clear he doesn't need it. He liked it, and he misses it. But he isn't dependent on it. Or on Iker. It's a conscious choice. And he liked the way it used to be. Iker liked it too.
"...Does this mean you're gonna stop being a dick?" Cesc asks quietly. His voice is muffled in Iker's shirt.
Iker feels himself smile. "Probably."
Then, "I'm sorry."
Cesc huffs out his nose and pushes his forehead against Iker's shoulder, punishment and forgiveness and don't do that again all at once. Iker hugs him, brief but tight, then sets him down on the bed. He goes through the fridge, making mental inventory of what they have and what they need. Cesc toes his shoes off and curls up on his side.
Iker writes a list on his palm when he can't find a scrap of paper. He grabs his keys and his coat and places the waste basket next to the bed.
"Puke bucket."
Cesc groans like just hearing the word could make it happen.
"Sleep, okay. I'll be back."
Iker looks at Cesc looking up at him from the mattress, and bends down to kiss him on the lips. Barely there, but he lingers. When he pulls away, it's like Cesc forgets that you're supposed to open your eyes, when you're done kissing.
"I'll be back," Iker repeats.
090. tighten
Late September.
048. diamond.
Iker opens the door and drops his bookbag, then looks up and puts everything else down quieter. He holds the keys together when he sets them on the desk, so they set down with a gentle clink instead of a jangle.
Cesc is napping. He likes to nap. Iker thinks, if he could, he'd nap all the time. He can come back at any time of day, from a morning lecture or with a box of leftover pasta from dinner at Zarella's, and he'll find Cesc under the covers or on top of them, with clothes or without, tucked up in a ball.
Today he's wearing jeans and socks and one of Iker's shirts, because all of his are dirty. Iker lies down very carefully in the open space behind him, flat on his back, shoes off the bed. They aren't touching.
At first he ignored it. It wasn't a big deal. It's just something he realized, in a conscious way, and he freaked out a bit and now he's done with it. But the thought's like an earworm, like hearing a song and getting it stuck in your head a week later, going crazy trying not to hum it.
He'll look at Cesc waiting for him outside the English building and notice how narrow his shoulders slope. How big and boyish his eyes are. He'll watch Cesc dart around guys twice his size on the pitch and there's another boy, an even smaller one, but it seems like it's always Cesc who gets tackled, Cesc who comes home limping with bruises the size of plums. He isn't fragile, but he's breakable. His hair is messy. His wrists are thin. Some of them aren't even things about Cesc that turn him on. But some are.
He likes that Cesc is smaller then him. He likes how easy it is to turn him on, how an open kiss behind his ear or a thumb on his nipple can push him over the edge, shuddering and slack-jawed. He likes when Cesc snuffles in his hair. He likes that Cesc's hips slot perfectly in his hands. He likes when Cesc sleeps between the wall and Iker's body-likes knowing, vaguely, that if something came after Cesc, it would have to get through him first. He knows he's not supposed to like something because he can protect it. He's not supposed to like something when the power balance is so incredibly skewed.
Cesc shifts, turning his face into the sheets. It's cold in the room. Iker fixes his shirt where it's riding up, pulling it down to meet his pants. Cesc reaches back and keeps Iker's hand there, covering the clothed ridge of his hip.
The flu is going around campus. Dr. Beckham gets it bad, and Iker gets a few days off of class. He spends the time working on his thesis, writes the email he's supposed to write to his residents: the flu's going around campus, if you have flu-like symptoms, please refrain from going to class, this is the number of the Health Office. But he's fine and Cesc is fine, all late summer tan and grass stains on his knees, and Iker thinks maybe it passed over their room, like the RA sign is lamb's blood on their door.
Then he wakes up at 4 in the morning on a Tuesday and isn't sure why. His stomach flips and he realizes he's going to throw up.
Iker hasn't been sick since he was a teenager-really, really sick, anyways-and he forgot the panic of it, the realization that you're going to throw up and there's nothing you can do about it. It's humiliating too, being sick, being out of control of your body. Throwing up hurts more than he remembers. His eyes are a little wet, on reflex.
He sits back, panting, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He flushes the toilet, then peeks out the bathroom door from the floor. The sliver of light shows that Cesc is still sleeping, which makes things better. He scoots back to lean against the wall, fighting down vertigo, and closes his eyes.
Iker blinks. It's morning and Cesc's in the bathroom. The light's on and it feels like knives to the back of his head. He doesn't make a sound but he opens his mouth and just like that, Cesc covers his eyes with his hand. Darkness closes in around him. He relaxes a bit.
"Are you okay?" Cesc asks.
Iker hurts all over. He's stoved up from hours on the tile and there's a deeper ache now, in his head and his muscles. "I'm fine." He shifts to sit up straighter. "I'm sick."
"Sick how?"
He feels Cesc hunch down at his side. His other hand cups Iker's forehead, then pushes his bangs back. Iker can feel it in every hair on his head, the weird hypersensitivity that comes with illness.
"Just throwing up."
"Oh, 'just throwing up'. Okay, no big," Cesc says. "Your head's really hot. Keep your eyes closed."
He stands and flips off the light, then opens the bathroom door more, letting sun in from the window that isn't too harsh, but bright enough so they won't trip on anything. Iker can't see any of this, but he hears it. He still squints his eyes when he opens them, just to make sure.
Cesc is nowhere to be seen. The stale smell of vomit still hangs in the air. His skin feels tacky and cold and he smells weird. He looks longingly at the shower and realizes, with some horror, that he doesn't know if he could stay on his feet long enough.
Cesc comes back and sits on the floor next to him, cross-legged. His hair is all sticking up on one side, but not the other. Their knees are bumping. He looks particularly young or maybe vulnerable and Iker doesn't want-but he gravitates. He feels nauseous again.
"You're going to get sick," he tells Cesc.
"No, my immune system's, like, evolved," Cesc says simply, morning hoarse. (He sounds like he might if Iker fucked his mouth, and Iker can't-) Cesc hands him a glass of water, and Tylenol. The capsules stick to his palm. "They could make a sci-fi movie about my immune system."
No stubble on his chin.
"You're not staying."
"Right," Cesc says. Yeah right, he means.
"You're not staying," Iker repeats, his voice firm. "You need to go to class."
Cesc waits for a punchline that doesn't come. His face goes blank. Then he frowns. He seems to be considering saying something, but he doesn't. In the end, he gets up and leaves. Iker hears drawers opening and shutting, and then the click of the front door.
Iker thumps his head lightly on the wall.
He drags himself out of the bathroom around ten, manages to find the plastic trash can (stored in the closet) and lines it with a bag before he feels too tired to walk around anymore. He flips open his laptop, and it takes him two tries to enter his password correctly. He's just started an email to Dr. Del Bosque about missing class today (that should go over well) when an AIM box pops up. Iker always forgets that it signs him in as soon as he boots up. He needs to figure out how to turn that off.
belmonte4: dude i heard ur on ur deathbed
Iker types for a few seconds, then stops. It's hard to be funny.
belmonte4: do u need anything. bc ill buy it and leave it outside the door but no way im comign in there
icasillas: I'm good.
belmonte4: wheres cesc
icasillas: Class.
belmonte4: u sent him to class?
Iker doesn't know how Sergio knows these things. He doesn't respond, and after a minute, the little pencil blinks. Sergio is typing.
belmonte4: ur loss
Iker wakes up and feels a million times worse. He doesn't know if it's sunrise or sunset. He isn't even sure what day it is.
Cesc's playing his Gameboy at the table. So, sunset. Iker doesn't know how long he's been home, tiptoeing around, forced to be quiet in a way he isn't natural for him.
Iker watches him play for a while, half-asleep, until Cesc looks up and notices he's awake, like he's been periodically checking all along. He pauses his game (no familiar ding, the sound is off) and goes into the kitchen. Iker hears the microwave beeping, and smells something that makes his stomach hurt with hunger and rebellion.
"I know you don't want to," Cesc says, "But you should eat this." He sets a bowl down next to him. It's broth and rice, and it doesn't look or smell pre-packaged. "My sister gets sick a lot. It helps."
Cesc's hair is wet from a shower after practice. He has a cut on his lip where he chewed on it too hard. It's a bad habit. Iker's still looking up at him because he can't stop, he hasn't touched him since the lecture about diamonds and he feels crazy, and Cesc's looking down, thoughtful, then he bends down and Iker thinks he might kiss him, or kiss his cheek, but Cesc just gently bumps their foreheads and it's so-Iker's overcome with this cutting need to crush Cesc in his arms. To pin him down and hold him and keep him there, even when he's sick, when he couldn't get it up for shit and doesn't really want to touch anybody anyways.
Cesc smells like the Nerds he buys from the corner store with spare change.
Iker pushes him away.
"What's your problem?" Cesc should be mad, but he seems more confused than anything else. He's so small in his shirt.
"Don't you have somewhere to go?" It's maybe the harshest thing Iker's ever said to him, and it comes out sounding even harsher than he meant it to. Sickness and discomfort and fever are escalating the situation, like kindling in a firepit.
There's a long silence. Cesc is looking to the side, his mouth a thin line. Iker can't tell what he's thinking. Then when he meets Iker's eyes, he's impossibly angry.
"Why won't you let me help you?" Because Cesc always says what most people think but never say. Iker doesn't know what to respond, so he doesn't respond at all.
Iker also doesn't know what kind of person sticks around after a fight, when the air is heavy and they're mad and everyone's mad, to wet washcloths. But after ten minutes in the hallway, when Iker thought he was halfway to a friend's to crash and maybe stay, Cesc is back, wetting a washcloth in the sink. He's wringing it out and folding it in half on the way out of the kitchen, and he lays it out on Iker's forehead. Then he sits at the desk and starts his homework.
Iker eats the soup and watches carlights on the wall, drifting in and out of consciousness. After twenty minutes or so, Cesc gets up and comes back to take the bowl and turn the washcloth over, like he knew it was getting hot. It's cold again. It feels good. Iker falls asleep listening to Cesc's pencil scratch the paper, the occasional rubbery sound of his eraser rubbing graphite.
He has weird dreams. They're more vivid than usual, and they move faster. It reminds him of being high and getting overwhelmed when someone near you moves too fast. Everything is stutter motion.
The one he remembers, he had early on. Unai's in it for a while, they're at the art museum they took their mom to for her birthday. They're eating macaroni and cheese all alone in the restaurant when Iker thinks he might see Cesc outside, moving around in the courtyard full of statues. Iker tries to find him, but every time he thinks he does, it's another statue instead. He thinks, even in the dream, this isn't symbolic of anything, really. Only how much I want him.
He wakes up sweating all over and his mouth is dry and the clock says 11:35AM. Cesc is leaning against the counter, eating a bowl of Fruit Loops. He's skimming a magazine he lifted from the mailroom.
Iker knows he had an 11'o'clock class. "Cesc," he starts, then he throws up. He clutches the side of the bed a bit, because it hurts.
Cesc watches, and waits for him to finish. "Shut up, Iker."
He stands there and stares at him until he's sure that Iker isn't going to say anything else, then he goes in the kitchen. Iker hears the faucet running, the bowl being rinsed out in the sink. He rolls over.
Cesc comes back with orange juice and pills. They might be vitamin C, or they might be Tylenol, or both. Iker swallows them either way.
Cesc lies down, facing him. He settles in with the mandated distance between them, because they're fighting. Iker feels a little better now, for having thrown up.
"Am I too hot?" Cesc murmurs, watching him.
"No," Iker replies.
Cesc reaches up, brushing Iker's damp hair back off his forehead.
It's been two days since he got better, three since he started going back to classes. Cesc and him aren't talking much beyond the niceties. It isn't awkward, but it's strained. One morning Cesc looks gray around the edges, but he's an adult or close enough and if Cesc thinks he's fine to go to class, then he's fine to go to class.
But when Iker opens the door halfway through Cesc's practice time and there are two boys there, one of them holding Cesc up with an arm around his waist, all those thoughts are gone. The alternating "He's fine" and "I need to end it" and "It's not that big of a deal" and "You're a pervert" and "This can be just like my other relationships." All Iker can think about is not reaching out for him and taking him.
Something must show in Iker's face, the way his hands move, because the taller boy says, "He's okay."
"He puked in practice today," the smaller one explains.
"He always pukes in practice," the taller one points out, adjusting Cesc on his side.
"Shut up," Cesc mumbles.
"I'm Pique," the taller one responds, ignoring him. "This is Leo."
"Nice to meet you," Leo says. Leo is the other small boy on the team. Iker wonders if he got the side-looking from Cesc or vice-versa. His couldn't be interpreted as anything close to sullen, though. Just shy. Iker probably likes Leo.
"Nice to meet you," Iker says.
"Anyways." Pique's hand is steady on Cesc's hip, holding him up. Iker recognizes that he's sizing him up, and that he doesn't trust him. "If you need anything, you'll call us," he says to Cesc, more statement than question.
"Yeah," Cesc says.
Pique gives him a slight hug and hands him over to Iker. Cesc's ribs are hot under his hands, thin and birdlike.
"We're coming over tomorrow, to see how he is," Pique says, like he's daring Iker to say otherwise.
"Sure," Iker replies. If Iker were thinking straight, he'd decide he likes Pique too.
They leave and Iker closes the door. Cesc is avoiding eye contact, slumped in Iker's grip. It reminds Iker of the beginning of the semester. He knows it's his fault. He hates it.
"It's something else. It's not even the same thing," Cesc says, defiant. He's all tight lines and stiff shoulders, bracing for Iker's I-told-you-so. But after a moment, it's like something in him gives. He goes loose all over. He presses his face in Iker's chest, near his arm, like just smelling Iker makes him feel a little better.
Iker puts his hand in the back of Cesc's hair. They stand there by the door.
Cesc came to him. Iker needs to think about it. Cesc came to him, and Iker let him, and then he cut him off without any explanation at all. And Cesc didn't understand why, but he made it clear he doesn't need it. He liked it, and he misses it. But he isn't dependent on it. Or on Iker. It's a conscious choice. And he liked the way it used to be. Iker liked it too.
"...Does this mean you're gonna stop being a dick?" Cesc asks quietly. His voice is muffled in Iker's shirt.
Iker feels himself smile. "Probably."
Then, "I'm sorry."
Cesc huffs out his nose and pushes his forehead against Iker's shoulder, punishment and forgiveness and don't do that again all at once. Iker hugs him, brief but tight, then sets him down on the bed. He goes through the fridge, making mental inventory of what they have and what they need. Cesc toes his shoes off and curls up on his side.
Iker writes a list on his palm when he can't find a scrap of paper. He grabs his keys and his coat and places the waste basket next to the bed.
"Puke bucket."
Cesc groans like just hearing the word could make it happen.
"Sleep, okay. I'll be back."
Iker looks at Cesc looking up at him from the mattress, and bends down to kiss him on the lips. Barely there, but he lingers. When he pulls away, it's like Cesc forgets that you're supposed to open your eyes, when you're done kissing.
"I'll be back," Iker repeats.
090. tighten